And the stout gentleman playfully inserted his elbow between the ribs

of Mr Pickwick, and laughed very heartily.

'Lor, brother!' said Miss Wardle, with a deprecating smile.

'True, true,' said the stout gentleman; 'no one can deny it. Gentlemen,

I beg your pardon; this is my friend Mr Trundle. And now you all know

each other, let's be comfortable and happy, and see what's going

forward; that's what I say.' So the stout gentleman put on his

spectacles, and Mr Pickwick pulled out his glass, and everybody stood

up in the carriage, and looked over somebody else's shoulder at the

evolutions of the military.

Astounding evolutions they were, one rank firing over the heads of

another rank, and then running away; and then the other rank firing

over the heads of another rank, and running away in their turn; and

then forming squares, with officers in the centre; and then descending

the trench on one side with scaling- ladders, and ascending it on the

other again by the same means; and knocking down barricades of

baskets, and behaving in the most gallant manner possible. Then

there was such a ramming down of the contents of enormous guns on

the battery, with instruments like magnified mops; such a preparation

before they were let off, and such an awful noise when they did go,

that the air resounded with the screams of ladies. The young Misses

Wardle were so frightened, that Mr Trundle was actually obliged to

hold one of them up in the carriage, while Mr Snodgrass supported

the other; and Mr Wardle's sister suffered under such a dreadful state

of nervous alarm, that Mr Tupman found it indispensably necessary

to put his arm round her waist, to keep her up at all. Everybody was

excited, except the fat boy, and he slept as soundly as if the roaring of

cannon were his ordinary lullaby.

Joe, Joe!' said the stout gentleman, when the citadel was taken, and

the besiegers and besieged sat down to dinner. 'Damn that boy, he's

gone to sleep again. Be good enough to pinch him, sir - in the leg, if

you please; nothing else wakes him - thank you. Undo the hamper,

Joe.'

The fat boy, who had been effectually roused by the compression of a

portion of his leg between the finger and thumb of Mr Winkle, rolled

off the box once again, and proceeded to unpack the hamper with

more expedition than could have been expected from his previous

inactivity.

Now we must sit close,' said the stout gentleman. After a great many

jokes about squeezing the ladies' sleeves, and a vast quantity of

blushing at sundry jocose proposals, that the ladies should sit in the

gentlemen's laps, the whole party were stowed down in the barouche;

The Pickwick Papers